1. Field of the Invention
The invention pertains to a rotary combustion engine, comprising essentially a peripheral housing, side housing plates, a piston, and an eccentric shaft, where the triangular piston mounted on the eccentric shaft rotates inside the housing between the side plates around an epitrochoidal orbit with a long and short axis to form three working spaces, which are separated from each other by the tips of the piston and which pass, in succession, through a four-phase cycle with an ignition-TDC and an overlap-TDC on the short axis and two bottom dead centers on the long axis; where the gas exchange is controlled by an intake port and an exhaust port, the fuel is supplied by an injection nozzle, and combustion is initiated by a spark plug; and where the injection nozzle and the spark plug are located in the housing.
2. Description of the Related Art
The rotary combustion engine known from DE 42 03 091 C1 has an orbit with two arcs inside the housing and a triangular piston (Reuleaux triangle), where, along the orbit, an injection nozzle is provided before, and a spark plug after, the section of the orbit at the axis and opposite the intake ports, and where the nozzle bores of the injection nozzle are directed into the pocket in the face of the piston at a tangent to the inward-rising surface of the section near the axis, the leading edge of the pocket being located under the center axis of the spark plug at the beginning of the injection process. This known design suffers from the disadvantage that, as the tip of the piston at the trailing edge of the compression space is just passing beyond bottom dead center and the compression phase is starting, the tip of the piston at the leading edge of the compression space and the associated volume reach the injection nozzle before the trailing edge has traveled over—and therefore closed off—the intake port. It has been found, namely, that a certain volume around the injection nozzle allows some of the gas mixture in the working space where the pressure is very high because of expansion to blow through into the compression space. This blow-through of gas mixture leads to wide pressure fluctuations and to loud noise in the intake port when this port is still open, and at the same time the degree to which the engine can be filled is also significantly impaired.